Jimmy Gressier about to trash Jim Walmsley - Watch it live at 1 pm ET on Friday

Walmsley acknowledged on Twitter that others have probably done it faster than him.

https://twitter.com/walmsleyruns/status/1250662938957889536?s=21

Jimmy doesn't speak a word of English, he doesn't know what letsrun is and he didn't even know who Jim Walmsley was before yesterday, it's the Gras brother (Michael and Damien) who told him to run that course because they said that "he could probably break the record of a very famous ultra runner". He did it because he is going home in France tomorrow and since he doesn't have any competition planned in the futur, he wanted to have a bit of fun for the end of his preparation in Flagstaff. He also wanted to do it because he's planning to move to the marathon very early (in 2 years)

He went through the 20k mark in 1:07 he dropped the Gras brothers and he's got a big lead on Walmsley time.

That's the end, he finished walking because he paced himself terribly, maybe because that's his first 30km longrun ever. Damien Gras is now first and he's destroying Jim Walmsley time

5km before the end he was running at 3:10km easyly but he then "hit the wall" he actually did a severe hypoglycemia because he did not drink a single time during the session and he literally walked the last km, he said that he can't drink while running because he has stomach problems. Jim time was 1h56, Jimmy ran 1h54 (in pace to run 1h52 until the last 3 km), Michael also ran 1h54 and Damien finished strong to run 1h53. Although Damien and Michael are strong runners, they're nowhere near Jim Walmsley and Jimmy Gressier level in term of potential or achievement.

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

turnips wrote:

I'm all for people going for other people's Strava segments, but your thread title is trashy. How about "Jimmy Gressier will attempt to beat Walmsley's CR on the ____ Strava segment - watch live".

Sure one post like this is trashy but 1000 posts about how Walmsley will destroy all those professional road marathoners at the Olympic trials and run the AR is classy. Go home people. Walmsley would not have a pro contract if he was a marathoner.

It's not an either/or. Walmsley is really, really good. He is not the fastest road runner in the US. But what he does on the trails is super impressive & 2:15-flat for 22nd on a tough course against the best competition our country can offer is pretty dang good. He beat a number of quality guys.

This segment was discussed on a live segment with Matthew Baxter And Rory Linkletter. Ben Rosario ch8med in and said the record is Abdi at 1:51. I guess he didn’t do Strava ,but everyone seems to know he did it. Strava segments doesn’t mean it’s the record.

MikeD wrote:

This segment was discussed on a live segment with Matthew Baxter And Rory Linkletter. Ben Rosario ch8med in and said the record is Abdi at 1:51. I guess he didn’t do Strava ,but everyone seems to know he did it. Strava segments doesn’t mean it’s the record.

While I completely believe that Abdi could and did run 1:51, records have to be verifiable. Maybe he recorded it on his Garmin or Nike + watch.

In reality, these Strava CRs aren't anything the pros take seriously.

Halvard wrote:

... he said that he can't drink while running because he has stomach problems...

He's planning to move to the marathon, but he can't drink while running?

Bon Chance Jimmy, boooonnnnnnn chance!

Or even "bonne chance", in French.

Damien Gras now has the Strava segment record with a 1:52.41.

I have run on a portion of that segment and it was a dirt road. Walmsley shines more on rocky, technical trails than roads.

He has 2 years to improve on that and he could take mostly gels, no?